Strange New World (episode)
An Enterprise landing party believes T'Pol is conspiring with a species of rock creatures on a strange class M planet. Summary While headed for an unnamed nebula, ''Enterprise'' unexpectedly passes an unknown planet with an Earth-like atmosphere and surface. T'Pol designates this type of planet as Minshara-class. Sensor scans of the planet reveal no sign of intelligent lifeforms. An away team comprised of Captain Archer, T'Pol, Malcolm Reed, Trip Tucker, Travis Mayweather, Elizabeth Cutler and Ethan Novakovich travels to the surface by shuttlepod. After a few hours of exploration, the captain and Reed return to Enterprise, while the rest stay on the surface overnight for scientific investigation (though Tucker and Mayweather stay more for personal interest). After some time telling ghost stories, a storm emerges and the surface crew needs to take shelter in a nearby cave. While T'Pol and Tucker are discussing how to settle in the cave, Novakovich notices movement in the back of the cave. When Mayweather goes back to the original camping site to recover food which they had forgotten, he as well sees a few seemingly humanoid lifeforms wandering around outside. As he tells this to the rest of the crew on his return Novakovich seems to lose his mind and runs away out of the cave. Tucker and Mayweather try to follow and search for Novakovich, to no avail. However, Tucker briefly notices a lifeform which apparently emerges out of a rock and sinks back in again. Meanwhile T'Pol has gone to explore the deeper parts of the cave, leaving only Cutler behind, who does not feel at ease about it at all, and eventually decides to go after T'Pol. When she nears T'Pol, she finds her talking to a few lifeforms, but by the time the two actually meet there is no one else there anymore and T'Pol denies any meeting. They go back to the front of the cave where they meet Tucker and Mayweather again and hear about the rock body. Cutler then tells about T'Pol's meeting but the latter denies again. The others do not believe her and are becoming suspicious about the away mission as the prolongation was specifically upon the instigation of T'Pol. The captain finally decides to get the away team back to Enterprise but the shuttle is unable to land due to the storm. The away team is then forced back in the cave for the night. However, since Novakovich would not go in the cave with the others, it is decided to use the still experimental transporter to bring him back. The transporter is unable to distinguish between Novakovich and the plant life being blown around him, several leaves are embedded in his skin as a result. Following that, Phlox discovers that he has been affected by a kind of local pollen brought by the storm (and that the others could be affected as well). This is followed by a phase where the state of all the members of the away team becomes more serious. Tucker become quite delusional and keeps pointing a phase pistol at T'Pol and shooting at the rocks. Meanwhile, on board Enterprise Phlox discovers that the pollen has a poisonous effect, creating the need to transport an antidote (as well as a sedative) to the team on the planet. The tension reaches its maximum in T'Pol and Tucker pointing a phase pistol at each other. Finally, the captain, unable to reason with Tucker, resorts to elaborating on Tucker's delusions. This way T'Pol – who is being given instructions by Hoshi Sato because she has fallen back to her native speech, suggesting that she has been affected as well, only able to control it better – is finally able to overwhelm Tucker. She then proceeds to administer the antidote to all members of the away team, herself included. The next morning, the storm is over, everyone is fine and the planet is as beautiful as it was the day before, making the previous night look like a bad dream. Memorable quotes "You expect us to sit up here for a week while probes have all the fun?" : - Trip Tucker "Where no dog has gone before." : - Tucker, following Porthos' ebullient departure from the shuttlepod and marking his territory at a nearby tree "Let me guess... no ghost stories on Vulcan?" : - Tucker, to T'Pol "That's it. To the left of that trinary cluster." "What?" "Our sun." "Are you sure?" "Yeah I'm positive. Just another speck of light... no different than any other." : - Cutler, Tucker, and Mayweather, looking up at the stars "Your emotions are beginning to affect your judgment. You're becoming irrational." "You've never seen me irrational." : - T'Pol and Tucker "You have your assignments. We'll rendezvous here at 1900 hours... unless the captain wants us to pose for more pictures." : - T'Pol "I can survive without water for several days. Can you?" : - T'Pol, to Tucker "And I have a phase pistol pointed at my head." : - T'Pol "Challenge your preconceptions or they'll challenge you." "Commander?" "That's something Mr. Velik used to say. Tenth grade biology class. He was a Vulcan scientist who came to teach us about life on other worlds. I'd never seen a Vulcan before... not up close. He scared the hell out of me." "Perhaps it's not too late to follow his advice." : - Tucker and T'Pol "Say one more word of that gibberish, and I'm gonna split you in two." : - Tucker, to T'Pol who speaks in Vulcan Background Information * In , Captain Archer's bio screen reveals that this unnamed planet, the first visited by Enterprise NX-01, would later be named Archer IV, a planet originally mentioned as the site of a battle between the Klingons and in . Captain Archer also mentioned the planet to Captain Hernandez in 2154. * This episode marks the first time T'Pol is seen using the Vulcan nerve pinch. * This episode is the first to establish that "Class M" (as Star Trek fans are accustomed to hearing) actually stands for, in Vulcan planetary classification, "Minshara class". * Rock creatures were an abandoned concept developed for . * This is the first appearance of Crewman Elizabeth Cutler. * Cutler's biology text can be seen to list a number of Trek science concepts relating to alien life, such as Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development. * This episode was originally to have included the demise of Crewman Novakovich, the first member of the crew to die aboard the NX-class Enterprise. During filming, Scott Bakula was concerned that it didn't seem right to kill off Novakovich without dealing with the loss (as originally written, Novakovich's death was not dissimilar to the many security guards who died in the [[Star Trek: The Original Series|original Star Trek series]]). The producers agreed and revised the script so that Novakovich lived (although the character was never seen again). It was two more years before an Enterprise NX-01 crewman was lost in the line of duty. ( ) * Among the item from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, were two fold-out camping chairs. Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 1.2, . *As part of the UK VHS collection Enterprise 1.1-1.3 Collectors Edition: *As part of the ENT Season 1 DVD collection. Links and references Starring *Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer *John Billingsley as Doctor Phlox *Jolene Blalock as Subcommander T'Pol *Dominic Keating as Lieutenant Malcolm Reed *Anthony Montgomery as Ensign Travis Mayweather *Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi Sato *Connor Trinneer as Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III Guest Stars *Kellie Waymire as Crewman Elizabeth Cutler *Henri Lubatti as Crewman Ethan Novakovich Co-Star *Rey Gallegos as a crewman Uncredited Co-Stars *Jef Ayres as Crewman Haynem *Sandro DiPinto as a science division crewman *Evan English as Ensign Tanner *Jack Guzman as a science division crewman *Marlene Mogavero as an operations division crewman *Prada and Breezy as Porthos *Gary Weeks as an operations division crewman References Archer IV; biology; camping; camping chair; choloromethane; cormalite; ecology; entomology; EV pack; Florida Keys; geological analysis; inaprovaline; life pod; limestone; Loracus Prime; man-made satellite; marker buoy; Minshara class; nitrogen dioxide; nitrogen narcosis; Omega training mission; plomeek broth; Titan; tropolisine; Velik; Vulcan; Vulcan nerve pinch; Webb, George; Y-500 class Other references Darwin, Charles; Gagarin Radiation Belt; Galápagos Islands; Hodgkin, A.E.; Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development; Loracus devil mite; Loracus Prime spitting termite; Loracus system; termite |next= }} cs:Strange New World de:Geistergeschichten es:Strange New World fr:Strange New World nl:Strange New World pl:Strange New World sv:Strange New World Category:ENT episodes